All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: This story came from an awesome idea by reader SDiablo, and I thank them very, very much for their suggestion! Normally I don't do requests, but this was too good not to be written.

This is ultimately a Romy story, but takes some dark, twisted turns to get there. More angry than angsty, you may end up hating me for a while as we go along, but I promise the end will be worth it. Definitely for mature audiences only thanks to some good old fashioned sex and violence.

Takes place after the end of the last Gambit series, and during the first few issues of Uncanny Avengers (vol. 1). Rogue has control of her absorption abilities, no Wonderman in her head, and Logan is still alive. Having read the Gambit arc with Joelle and the Zero Compound (#9-11) would be helpful for following the story, but hopefully not necessary.

As always I write with very minimal accents, lay it on as thick as you need to in your own head.

Happy reading!

Treading Water

Chapter One

"Rogue?"

Natasha Romanova, the superspy and Avenger known to the world as the Black Widow, didn't even look up from the rack of frilly dresses she was flipping her way through. "We are being watched."

I stiffened but followed her lead, kept digging for deals. Natasha and I were hardly what you would call friends, but in an effort to get to know my new teammate, I had suggested a girls' day. I should have known better, secret agents as good as her didn't get days off, not even one lousy afternoon to herself.

"In the sale racks at Barneys?" I quipped. "Geez, sugar, can't take you anywhere…"

Her lips formed a small smile. "Actually, I believe he is one of yours. Men's ties."

My eyes trailed casually across the store until I found who she was talking about. Damn. I nearly cussed out loud and felt my skin flush at the sight of the familiar face pretending to paw through the meticulously arranged stacks of neckwear.

She held up a taffeta red confection like she loved it, though I was sure it had been forever since the Black Widow had actually bought anything straight off the racks. "I'll head for the dressing room like I'm going to try this on. You stay put, and I'll circle back around. My guess is he'll move your way once I am gone."

I plastered on a huge fake smile and nodded like I loved her dress, too, and went back to the rack in front of me to keep up the charade. Out of the corner of my eye, Jean-Luc LeBeau, trying his best to act like your average shopper, proved Natasha right within five seconds of her walkin' away. The former leader of the New Orleans' Thieves Guild and the adopted father of my ex-boyfriend Remy, the X-Man Gambit, sidled up next to me.

"Not what I would pick for you, petite," he murmured, motioning to the outfit in my hands. He produced a green mini-dress from the rack that had potential and smiled slyly. "Perhaps something a bit more…provocative?" The front of the dress when he spun the hangar to face me had a neckline so low you would have seen my belly button.

Irritated, I grabbed the dress from him and stuffed it back where it came from. "What do you want, Jean-Luc?"

There was a time I had thought without a doubt that this man would someday be my father-in-law. Though Remy and I were currently on the outs, I had hoped that we'd be back on sometime real soon, but for that to happen, we would actually have to talk to one another. I hadn't heard from Remy in weeks. Our last breakup was mostly my fault. I was the one who had wanted time alone to sort out my feelings for him, and to give me time to get a handle on my newly controlled mutant powers, but I wasn't too stubborn to admit I had made a mistake. I may have made the breakup necessary, but that didn't make the hurt go away, didn't make me love him any less. Unfortunately, if things worked out like I hoped, and Remy and I picked up where we left off, that meant I had to hold my temper the best I could with this man, though Jean-Luc always did his best to get under my skin.

Tilting his head, he placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. "Now, Rogue, why do I have to want something from you? Can't a man just say 'allo to a pretty girl?"

I raised an eyebrow and put a hand on one hip. "Please, sugar. When have you ever just paid me a visit? I'm surprised you got my attention before I went into the dressing room this time…" Years ago, in some Salem Center boutique, Jean-Luc had busted in on me wearing nothin' but my unmentionables.

His smile became a smoldering simmer. "A memory I hold close to my heart as well, petite."

I opened my mouth, prepared to make a scene, when the Back Widow melted from the sea of clothing and stood right behind Jean-Luc.

"Get to the point, thief," she ordered, and he winced.

"Didn't take you for a comedian, Romanova," he gritted his teeth, and I could only assume Natasha was pushing the tip of a hidden blade into his backside.

"Nat, it's all right," I urged. Last thing I wanted was a brawl between the two of them in the middle of a Manhattan department store. She met my eyes, hers nothing but hardened steel honed over the course of a very long lifetime, but stepped back.

Jean-Luc sighed and relaxed, straightening the collar of his jacket. Rarely flustered, he cultivated a persona of easy charm and grace that harkened back to the bygone era of mustachioed swashbucklers like Erol Flynn, but the Russian beauty had clearly ruffled his feathers. He mumbled some gutter French out of the corner of his mouth, too fast for me to understand, but Natasha clearly did. Her eyes flashed murderously and she moved towards him.

Hastily, I grabbed his arm and yanked him to safety. "I'll meet you back at the mansion, sugar," I called to her over my shoulder, and pushed his grinning ass through the crowds, leaving a fuming Natasha in the dress department. So much for making friends with my new teammate. I'd be lucky if she ever talked to me again after this.

Jean-Luc's boisterous laughter echoed through the revolving doors and onto the crowded sidewalk. I kept an arm snaked through his and maneuvered us across Broadway and down West 76th, steering him towards Central Park.

"Do all LeBeau men have a death wish?" I hissed, after a few long and silent blocks.

He stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk, and his face, usually a mask of cool charisma and sophistication, was grim, worried. "You may be more right than you know, Anna."

Not many people called me by my given name. I had gone by Rogue for so long that it was a natural for most people. Except for Remy, my friends and family tended to only use Anna when they really wanted my attention, and Jean-Luc had it. My stomach lurched. The last time Jean-Luc had looked me up, Remy had gotten himself into a whole heap of trouble, and I knew he must be knee-deep in it again. I motioned Jean-Luc across Central Park West and we weaved through the throngs of joggers and tourists into every New Yorkers' favorite slice of green.

"What's he done this time?" I asked, afraid of any answer he would give me.

"It's what he hasn't done. He's been on a…job…of sorts…for the last couple of weeks, and hasn't made contact."

I wasn't happy that Remy the hero, Remy the teacher, was still pulling jobs for the Thieves' Guild, but that was an argument for another day. "That doesn't seem that out of the ordinary, sugar. If it's a complicated heist, Remy always told me you guys are incommunicado, right? So you don't blow your cover?"

He smoothed his moustache while we walked. It pissed me off that he was clearly deciding how much he wanted to reveal to me, even if he thought Remy was in serious trouble. "On a normal job, oui. This is different. This was me and him. Off the books."

"You and him?" My temper burned my throat white hot. "What bullshit did you pull him into…"

"Not my bullshit this time. He came to me."

I flinched. Remy still kept his secrets, even after all these years. You would think it wouldn't still sting, but it was hard not to feel hurt knowing someone I loved with all my heart and soul continued to keep so much locked away from me.

Jean-Luc kept talking. Either he hadn't seen the look on my face or had chosen to ignore it. "He came to me for information. He wanted to check out a lead, but his sources weren't giving him the kind of help he needed. I was able to access some of the Guild networks, and, working together, we were able to piece some things together, enough for him to start. A friend of Remy's, she died while he was trying to help her, had information on a chemical weapon, something called the Zero Compound? There were many in our line of work that had wanted to get their hands on that particular cocktail. This friend was a woman named Joelle…"

A fist of ice closed over my heart. Joelle. I had found Remy half-dressed with her hands all over him. We hadn't been a couple at the time, and I really had no right to be jealous of who he spent his time with, but I couldn't help it. I loved him, and I knew he loved me, we just couldn't seem to make it happen at the same time, but Joelle? She was the first woman in a long time that I saw as real competition for his affections, enough so that I had confessed my love to him like some kind of psycho ex-girlfriend. Remy had been happily surprised at my revelation, but before we could sort anything out, we had been interrupted by assassins sent after Remy and Joelle by the mobster Tombstone.

Tombstone had wanted the compound for himself and Remy had taken him on man to man, but it had been Joelle's sacrifice that had won the day. It had hurt more than I had wanted to admit when I had found them together, but I knew it had to have hurt Remy deeply that Joelle died, especially if he was still fighting for her all these months later.

I pitched my voice low and dropped with a thud onto a park bench. "Joelle destroyed that weapon, and the Avengers went and cleaned up all the leftover data hidin' in Hydra's base."

He joined me, draping his lithe form easily next to me, and shook his head. "Remy thought so, too, but he forgot about the last surviving flunky who had worked on the original project, some mid-level schmo everyone called Shakey, last seen in the tender clutches of one Lonnie Thompson Lincoln, Mr. Tombstone himself, before Remy blew the albino's club sky-high. Shakey's whereabouts be currently unknown."

Jesus H. Christ. The Zero Compound was created by agents of Hydra, chasing the secret of immortality for Baron Von Strucker, but it did almost the opposite, killed the supposedly un-killable by breaking down the carbon bonds in atoms, blowing them to smithereens in the process. It had the potential to wipe out millions if it fell into the wrong hands.

"So, what, you came to me to get the Avengers to mop it up?"

He held up a hand. "Not just yet. Word is, someone be lookin' to resurrect Hydra's research, but so far, all we found are whispers and rumors. Remy may be chasing smoke, from the sounds of it this Shakey didn't have the necessary clearance to cause such a big fuss. But, you know my son, leap first, look later. Me, I'd hate to embarrass you in front of your new teammates if we was jus' cryin' wolf…" He winked at me and I crossed my arms over my chest. "He went to dig up something more concrete before we brought it to you and your bosses."

I narrowed my eyes. "But, you were worried enough to come to me?"

"He missed our last arranged contact time."

"You were his backup?"

"In case something went wrong. Remy's a pro, I taught him how to handle himself, but his lack of communication is…concerning. Last time we spoke he was in Spain, and had a promising name for me to research, a Salvador Garcia. Billionaire shipping magnate with aspirations to be the Spanish Tony Stark, if Tony Stark dabbled a little more frequently in the criminal underworld. I traced the man and his money to the Mediterranean Coast and the port city of Valencia. Figured I'd take a trip across the pond and see what I can dig up."

"Gee, that's awful convenient, sugar. Did you know I inherited a beach house right on that coast?" I smelled a smooth Cajun setup.

Like Remy, I had been adopted and raised by less than reputable folks. My foster mothers Raven Darkholme, Mystique, and Irene Adler, Destiny, had loved me as much as they loved each other, but since Irene's death, Raven and I had been less than cordial, or however you wanted to sugarcoat her trying to kill me a handful of times. I had been the sole beneficiary of Irene's will, and she had made sure I would never be left cold or hungry again.

Jean-Luc smiled that smile all LeBeau had mastered, the one stolen from the devil himself. "Really? You don't say…"

Leaning back, I slung an arm over the back of the bench. "Why do you always have to beat around the bush, Jean-Luc? If you want me to come, all you gotta do is ask."

"If it's that easy, petite…" With a wolfish grin, he reached out and tucked a loose curl behind my ear. I rolled my eyes and backed away from his touch, but his eyes twinkled at our little game. He was an incorrigible flirt, just like his son, but I had always enjoyed giving it right back to him. "Your powers, Remy said you got a better handle on them these days? You can sneak a peek into people's minds without knocking them unconscious?"

I took his hand in mine, pressed his knuckles to my cheek, and used my mutant power, the ability to borrow a persons' thoughts, memories, and gifts with just a touch. For most of my adult life it had been out of control, the slightest brush of bare skin triggering the transfer, and I had kept myself locked away figuratively and literally from those that cared about me, including his son, keeping everyone at arms' length to protect them. I had a handle on my powers now, and life had relaxed in ways I never knew it could.

Sneaking a look into Jean-Luc's thoughts was wading into dangerous territory. I blushed furiously at the fantasies playing out in his mind, the newest ones starring yours truly and that low-cut green dress. "Jean-Luc," I whispered, "I was almost your daughter-in-law. You shouldn't be thinking about what kind of panties I have on…"

He laughed a loud bark of a laugh that frightened a nearby jogger into tripping off the sidewalk. "I love it!" He clapped his hands together. "Then, Rogue, cherie, would you be so kind as to accompany me to Spain? Find that rude son of my mine and teach him some manners?"

It was a game to him, even when it came to Remy's life and the lives of potentially millions. I would go, but I sure as hell wasn't leaving the Avengers out of the loop on something this big. I would talk to Logan, Wolverine, while I packed.

"And if I would be so kind as to put your sorry ass up in my beach house?" My home in Valencia had been left in a sad state after a battle with the X-Men's old foe the Shadow King a few years ago, but I had remodeled it as good as new. Just hadn't been there to spend any real time, like most of the properties left to me by my foster mother.

He grinned again. "How's your Spanish, petite, cause your French be a little rusty!"

I shot him my best heartbreaker smirk. "Sugar, I can speak anybody's language, so long as I get my hands on them first…"